"What is that? Comedianism for profit and for the amusement of the multitude," Janina answered herself. The stage now appeared to her as a real arena for the feats of clowns and trained monkeys. "I wanted to be an entertainer of the mob! And where does art come in? What is pure art, the ideal, for which hundreds of people sacrifice their lives?" "What is it and where is it to be found?" she asked herself uneasily, beginning to see that everything is rather an amusement than an aim in itself. Literature, poetry, music, painting, and all the fine arts passed before Janina's mind. She could not separate their utilitarian aspect from their purely artistic one. She saw that all artists played, sang, and created only to amuse that vast, brutal, mob. For it they sacrificed their lives, their strength, and their dreams; for it they struggled and suffered, lived and died. To Janina that vast multitude of Grzesikiewiczs, Kotlickis, and counselors, appeared in its ignorance and low instincts like a cruel master who, with a half-mocking, half-favoring smile, looked down upon that entire human throng of artists that painted, played, recited, created, and begged with a nervous look for his favor and recognition. And she saw one immense wave of human beings spreading over the wide plains of earth, swaying slowly and going nowhere; and on the other side all those artists who were passing through the mob in all directions, loudly proclaiming something, singing with inspired voices, pointing to the expanse of heaven, calling attention to the stars, trying to bring about some order in this disorderly, teeming multitude, opening paths among it, imploring it in deep tones. But the multitude either laughed or merely nodded its assent, but did not budge from its place. It surged and pushed about and trampled the artists underfoot. "What is that? Why?" Janina asked herself, greatly terrified. "If they do not need us then we ought to let them alone, keeping ourselves apart from them and living only for ourselves and with ourselves." But again everything became confused in her mind and she could not conceive how it would be possible to live apart from the rest of humanity and concluded that it would not be worth living at all in that way. Her thoughts whirled in confusion through her brain. Sowinska, who now took care of her with motherly solicitude, came in and interrupted her frenzied thoughts. "Why don't you go home?" she advised Janina sincerely. "Never!" answered Janina. "Why should you wear yourself out in that way? You will rest a little, gain new strength, and return again to the theater." "No," answered Janina quietly. "I forgot to tell you that old Mrs. Niedzielska was here to see me yesterday." "Do you know her?" asked the younger woman. "Not at all, but she had some business with me. Oh, she is a sly fox, that old hag!" added Sowinska. "Perhaps she is a bit too miserly, but otherwise she is a rather honest woman."